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October 8, 2012

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Afghan cleric offers money to kill perpetrators against Islam

AN Afghan cleric has offered rewards totalling US$400,000 for anyone killing the producer of a US-made anti-Islam film and a French cartoonist who drew caricatures of the Muslim prophet Mohammed.

"I have offered US$300,000 to anyone who kills the anti-Islam film producer and US$100,000 for killing the French cartoonist," said Mir Faroq Husaini, a prominent cleric in the western province of Herat.

Husaini said he had first announced the reward during a sermon on Friday in a large mosque in the city.

"I will sell all my properties, including my lands in Herat, to collect the money," he said.

Afghanistan is a devoutly Muslim nation and perceived insults to religion are taken seriously, often with violent consequences.

The "Innocence of Muslims," a crudely made film that mocks Islam, triggered violent protests in at least 20 countries including Afghanistan after excerpts were posted online last month.

Immediately after the film gained notoriety, French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo published cartoons caricaturing the Muslim prophet.

A Pakistani government minister last month placed a US$100,000 bounty on the head of the film maker.

Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmed Bilour also called on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda to join the hunt and help accomplish the "noble deed".

A California man behind an anti-Islam film that stoked violent protests in the Muslim world is due to appear in a federal court in Los Angeles this week for a preliminary hearing on whether he violated the terms of his probation over a 2010 bank fraud conviction, court papers show.

Mark Basseley Youssef, 55, who before went by the name Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, is due to face US District Judge Christina Snyder on Wednesday, the documents filed on Friday in US District Court show.

The terms of Youssef's 2011 release from prison include a ban on using aliases without the permission of a probation officer.

The Egyptian-born Youssef has been described as the producer of the crudely made 13-minute video filmed in California and circulated online under a number of titles, including "Innocence of Muslims." It mocked the Prophet Mohammad and sparked a torrent of anti-American unrest in Egypt and other Muslim countries last month.

The US Marshals Service arrested Youssef on September 27 and took him before a federal judge that day for a hearing held amid tight security at which prosecutors accused him of violating the terms of his probation.

A judge that day ordered him held without bail, and a federal prison official later confirmed he was taken to a high-rise federal jail in downtown Los Angeles.

An actress, Cindy Lee Garcia, who appeared briefly in the clip, has said she thought she was working on a historical adventure film and did not know it had anything to do with Mohammad.


 

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